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Sarah Hodgdon, Guest Writer

Director of Conservation, Sierra Club /

Sarah Hodgdon is the Sierra Club Director of Conservation. She began her grassroots organizing career in 1993 with Green Corps, serving as Recruitment Director for the group from 1996 - 2000. With Green Corps, Sarah recruited and trained young environmental activists who have since become Executive Directors of organizations such as Greenpeace, MoveOn.org and Rock the Vote. She went on to become the Executive Director of Dogwood Alliance, a North Carolina based forest protection organization. While at Dogwood Alliance, Sarah oversaw a national campaign that persuaded Staples and Office Depot to increase their sales of recycled paper, resulting in the first expansion in production at recycled paper mills in over ten years.

Before being named as the Sierra Club's Director of Conservation, Sarah first served as the Club's Deputy Field Director in Richmond, VA, helping to manage 26 field offices with an emphasis on operations, finances, and fundraising. She quickly moved on to become the Director of Climate Campaign Operations, overseeing programs for the Climate Recovery Partnership (CRP), a set of initiatives that will help cut carbon emissions 80% by the year 2050. Sarah supervised the CRP's flagship campaign, Beyond Coal, which has helped defeat nearly 100 proposed coal-fired power plants and has been described in Rolling Stone as "the most successful campaign the environmental movement has seen in more than a decade." As a result of the Beyond Coal campaign, the U.S. Department of Energy has reduced its projections of future carbon emissions.

Sarah was named Director of Conservation for the Sierra Club in June, 2009. In her new capacity, she will advocate for the end of coal-fired electricity, support market growth for clean energy alternatives, push for economic sanctions against greenhouse gas-intense energy, encourage the nation's transition to a green transportation system, and install safeguards to protect habitats and communities against inevitable climate change.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, explains why the non-profit will add civil disobedience to its roster of tactics in an effort to curtail the "global crisis unfolding before our eyes."